The comments about Fox really are not fair. What Beck, O'Reilly and Hanity do is not the news. They are pundit commentators--they are obviously partisan.

FoxNews is right tilting, but certainly no more (and I would say far less) than CNN is left tilting. As for MSNBC...Madrone! That place is a lefty liberal looney bin. The attacks of Stewart against FoxNews really are not fair.

In the end, whether Stewart intends to be taken seriously really doesn't matter. The fact is, many take him seriously, he is seriously popular, and even if it shouldn't, his show has an affect on the public's perception of politicians and the parties. With that in mind, it is pretty shallow to play the "I'm just a comedian on The Comedy Channel" card.

Crack, that is what I loved about it. Stewarts' hyperbolic comments only hurt Stewart's credibility and are a side show. The meat of this is Wallace got Stewart to go where Stewart did not want to go. He got Stewart to tell the truth.

..and Stewart is using "comedian" as a dodge for his role in shaping a substantial portion of the populations view of politics. He is unwilling to see the role of liberal viewpoints in shaping public opinion.

The meat of this is Wallace got Stewart to go where Stewart did not want to go. He got Stewart to tell the truth.

But no one's discussing that - The Mail's take is Stewart called Wallace a name. Ann's take is that it was a nice discussion. On Facebook they're all saying Stewart "schooled" Wallace. Elsewhere, the story is Stewart saying ABC, NBC, CBS isn't biased or pushing an agenda.

Why is everyone - regardless of party or ideology - focussing on everything but the story?

The current Sulzberger in chief might disagree with Stewart about the job of the Times.

Recall this comment:http://newsbusters.org/node/5569"I’ll start with an apology.

When I graduated from college in 1974, my fellow students and I had just ended the war in Vietnam and ousted President Nixon [light cheering]. Okay, okay, that's not quite true. I mean yes, the war did end and yes, President Nixon did resign in disgrace but maybe there were larger forces at play.

Either way, we entered the real world committed to making it a better, safer, cleaner, more equal place. We were determined not to repeat the mistakes of our predecessors. We had seen the horrors and futility of war and smelled the stench of corruption in government.

Our children, we vowed, would never know that.

So, well, sorry [pause and applause]. It wasn't supposed to be this way.

You weren't supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land [louder applause].

You weren't supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights, whether it's the rights of immigrants to start a new life; or the rights of gays to marry; or the rights of women to choose [applause].

You weren't supposed to be graduating into a world where oil still drove policy and environmentalists have to fight relentlessly for every gain.

If the job of the Times, acording to its Publisher, is to provide "judgment," and not to provide news to help we the citizens make informed judgments of our own, it is important to know what the moral ideas driving their story selection, and other judgments, is.

You recall correctly. The studies asked questions like, "True or False, Palin is an idiot?" If someone answered "false", they scored the answer as wrong. (I'm only slightly exaggerating the nature of the questions. One of the questions dealt with the anthropogenic nature of global warming.) Since more conservatives were likely to get such subjective questions "wrong", the studies showed Fox viewers (who are more likely to be conservative) to be less well-informed.

Stewart, “I’m a comedian first ... my comedy is informed by an ideological background.”

Well, “hey, nonny, nonny.”

Stewart pulling a Julie Taymor about people taking shots at her? Yes, and Wallis too, but in playfulness and serious hostility mixed with respect, both Wallis and Stewart closer to comedic Shakespeare than Taymor.

The Shakespeare who came to mind immediately to advise Taymor (I think Stewart and Wallace get this) and the Shakespeare with “a good balance between hostility and respect,” though making common fodder of both Stewart and Wallace (“men were deceivers ever” – as if Wallace and Stewart don’t know that they’re both professional liars! – and might as well be a little comedic good at it), and the Shakespeare in comedic mentorship to answer Taymor for her too-serious and too-little playful reaction to her critics.

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever. One foot in sea and one on shore, to one thing constant never. Then sigh not so but let them go,and be you blithe and bonny, converting all your sounds of woe into hey nonny nonny.

When Stewart says the the media is sensationalist and lazy he depicts everyone from CBS to Fox that is an obvious truth. When Steward admits that conservatives have a right to be angry for some of the labels liberals have tried to stick them with, I think he demonstrates his smarts which are not bound by ideological blinders. Of curse he does point out after that Fox viewers are the most misinformed of the general population. It is only because there is so much BS that it is easy for Steward to put together the sensational,lazy comments made by the media and the pols and then satirizes the absurdity of them--Who else would call Cramer to the carpet for some of his wild pumping of stocks?

What surprised me is that Stewart is willing to give the MSM a pass on their bias -- which he admits is there -- because they're motivated by greed, sensationalism, and laziness. Whereas FoxNews is eeeevilll because they're motivated by their ideology.

I am a huge Jon Stewart fan and I thought it was great. He actually had someone with enough "cred" to battle back and forth with him. Raised his game and made him even more intelligent. I thought Chris Wallace acquitted himself quite well, being as fair and balanced as he could be. Wish he were a little more combative with the righties that he lobs softballs at.

The business about Fox viewers, as has been pointed out, is one more lefty propaganda shot. It was not a valid poll and you would have a very difficult time conducting an accurate one.

It is an article of faith on the left that conservatives are dumb. It is the prop for their egos. If you conducted a poll on issues like the 9/11 truther matter, who do you think would look stupid then?

I thought it was an energetic exchange until Wallace showed the Herman Cain/Cain impersonation clip, and then asked about a future "Amos and Andy" for Stewart. Stewart got really, really angry--look at the expression that flickers across his eyes. After that, I thought Stewart came off as a jerk, while Wallace seemed unflappable. (Sorry, I can't search the clip, but seems to me that it was around the five-minute mark.)

I wish Wallace had pressed him on that "Fox viewers are by far, BY FAR, the least informed" bit. I would like to know where that came from, and why Stewart got away without giving some source on that.

Wallace is straight and honest and Stewart is sharp enough to understand that. To his credit, he goes on O'Reilly and now this show. He's still smug but @ least has some balls, unlike Bill Maher and that ilk. And, if you gave Stewart truth serum, he would admit Wallace is much less biased then Howdy Doody[Gregory] or Morticia Addams[Christiane].

Stewart was just plain rude. Twice he said "You don't understand...you can't understand." Very aggressive and Wallace should have smacked him down.

OTOH, Wallace said "I'm going to prove to you" lefty media bias. Never make that claim.

Wallace should have brought up the recent nonsense over not booking Steven Crowder because he's a conservative. Simply because he's a lefty, spouting the typical stereotypes and talking points, Stewart let himself wide open, but Wallace didn't move in for the kill.

Wallace is a smart guy...Stewart was way out of his league on this one. Why Wallace didn't school him is curious.

Stewart is a disgusting tool. Inviting Cat "I would kill Rushdie...no I won't take that back" Stevens onto the stage to sing "Peace Train" at Stewart's and Colbert's rally was pathetic.

In the end, whether Stewart intends to be taken seriously really doesn't matter.

He refuted Wallace's impression that he wants to be a political player with "I want my voice to heard." He does want to be a player and to be taken seriously. It does matter, because he's pandering to a crowd (same complaint he has against Fox), and will say whatever he thinks will sell to his audience.

I think Stewart is fairly smart for a liberal, but whenever he gets called to account for his opinions he more often than not just falls back on the "Oh, I'm just a comedian" routine. Hence, I don't take him terribly seriously. Excewpt that he's fairly typical.

Stewart's argument distills down to: I just want to make people laugh, and I don't really care about who gets skewered. That's MAY be possible for a few comedians, but he's not one of them. He's very popular with the left, hard left and those who just hate the right. That tells you where the bias is. If he was truly unbiased, who would he gain in his audience and who would he lose?

In fact, Daily Show viewershave higher campaign knowledge than national news viewers and newspaper readers -even when education, party identification, following politics, watching cable news,receiving campaign information online, age, and gender are taken into consideration

Daily Show" viewers are 78 percent more likely than the average adult to have four or more years of college education, while O'Reilly's audience is only 24 percent more likely to have that much schooling.

Plus, the network noted, "Daily Show" viewers are 26 percent more likely to have a household income more than $100,000, while O'Reilly's audience is only 11 percent more likely to make that much money.

As for the "extreme rightwing agenda" at Fox, I just don't get it. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes may be conservative, but they are not on camera much, not on Fox anyway.

Their news programs are just the standard press agency stuff as far as I can see. When Shepard Smith goes off track, it generally is because he has swallowed one of their howlers without checking it out and, of course, becomes outraged, right along with the MSM.

Their star pundit, or "gasbag," is Chris Wallace, who is Mike Wallace's son and has never known another world than Manhattan penthouses and Long Island estates. "Silk stocking liberal" maybe, but certainly no kind of a conservative.

Greta van Susteren and Bill O'Reilly are both fundamentally Democrats in their outlook, though not of the "progressive" kind. But "conservative?" Not much.

So then there is Glenn Beck, whose program I have never watched, so I have to take it from his appearances on O'Reilly's show. A bit weird, but generally a kindly person and certainly not "spewing" any hate that I have heard.

Hannity definitely opposes Democrats, and I do not agree with the conclusions he comes to very often, but "far rightwing nut-job?"

That description to my mind would fit better on John Stossel, but he is a libertarian, which is different from conservative, and in any case he brings up some matters we had ought to think more about, though perhaps coming to different conclusions than he does, and he does so in a quite reasonable voice. No ranting there either.

So what is all this about "Faux News far rightwing propaganda?" Mostly in the Kos-kids' imagination as far as I can see.

Stewart and the Left have a LOT invested in maintaining the following paradox: The Daily Show is just a comedy show that shouldn't be taken seriously WHILE many younger people (18-24) get the vast majority of their "news" from The Daily Show.

This plan, by the Left, is no different than packing the schools and universities full of Leftists and dispensing "facts". Both are intended to shape the opinions of the young while denying that's what their doing.

Wallace did a good job and let the man's hypocrisy and self-serving illogic speak for itself. At one point, Stewart just flat-out snarled - he does not like having to play defense. At the end of the interview, Stewart looks like he's about to run from the set. Stewart's used to challenging other people, with cheap shots from the safe environment of his Comedy Central set with the clapping monkeys standing by to cheer. Big words, from a big man (written by other people, of course.) He does not like being challenged back, not one bit. Can't mug and grin your way out of that. This Profile in Courage was too much of a wuss to argue with Chris Wallace, inconveniently present in studio, so he took out his hostilities on Fox viewers generally instead. Unfortunately, http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-noyes/2011/06/20/jon-stewart-slams-fox-viewers-most-misinformed-hes-ignorant-one.

"..and Stewart is using "comedian" as a dodge for his role in shaping a substantial portion of the populations view of politics."

No. Stewart merely provides a place where people can hear said humorously and succinctly what they already know: the media and our political system today are seriously fucked up, hypocritical, and in collusion with one another to hoodwink the public, and rife with frauds, nitwits, and megalomaniacs.

My quarrel with Stewart is that he is at times too obvious and hammy, and when he has powerful people on with him, he becomes rather obsequious and too respectful by far.

I'd hate to go into battle with you guys because you'd be shooting everywhere but at the enemy. And that's precisely why this country is limping, fraud is so rampant, and the discussion of issues is so asinine:

Nobody can recognize what's important.

Go on, you guys, keep discussing all the peripheral bullshit, that lets everyone off the hook, when the main story - Jon Stewart skewers himself and his supporters as bigots and fools - is staring you right in the face.

That's the one thing that was said that's beyond debate but you guys want to discuss Stewart's mode of attack, what might be the intelligence of FOX viewers, and any other debatable bullshit? Are you kidding me?

I thought it was an energetic exchange until Wallace showed the Herman Cain/Cain impersonation clip, and then asked about a future "Amos and Andy" for Stewart. Stewart got really, really angry--look at the expression that flickers across his eyes. After that, I thought Stewart came off as a jerk, while Wallace seemed unflappable. (Sorry, I can't search the clip, but seems to me that it was around the five-minute mark.)

I commented on this yesterday. Wallace was definitely feisty on this interview. I couldn't tell at times whether he was trying to funny (i.e. yanking Stewart's chain) but that Cain clip hit on Stewart's blind spot, how political bias informs his comedy. And then how he uses its a comedy show too often as the excuse.

Clearly the "racist" charge riled Stewart. I have to admit it was heartening to see someone on the left side have the visceral reaction to the charge.

I like Stewart's comedy, I just wish he was more consistent in seeing his blind spots.

Now if Steward was on his toes, when Wallace mentioned race he would have referred to this.

I thought it was telling that Stewart could not look Wallace in the eye nor could he look directly at the camera. He cast his eyes down in a way that children do when they have been caught out and they are telling a lie to cover themselves.

Then look at how angry he is and how he clenches his teeth and bites the words when talking about how uninformed Fox viewers are. Someone not pushing an agenda would not do that. In my mind Stewart just came off as ill-prepared and juvenile.

I wondered if maybe he was just giving him enough rope to hang himself. Don't know. He let Stewart claim to work harder than Wallace. Really? Making up jokes around a table is harder than (serious) journalism? I really expected Wallace to come back to that, but he let it pass w/o batting an eyelid. Odd.

Crack, it wasn't an admission - it was a dodge. He knows what he says is important, and he thinks it's right. He believes his audience is smarter than they are, just like himself. If he had another way out he would not have thrown them under the bus, but he had nothing else.

It's the oldest dodge: "I'm just kidding, you don't really take me serious do you?"

@Garage: The study you submitted shows that the late night comedians made three to four times more jokes about Bush than Kerry during the election....If you do not read the NY Times, you are not misinformed or uninformed. You might just be drinking from a different well....Facts are biased. You can always find some greedy capitalist screwing somebody out of something. And you can always find some goverment bureaucrat mismanaging some misbegotten program. Guess which story the Times will lead with, and which Fox news will find noteworthy......From my readings of the biographies of such well informed men as Lippmann, Theodore White, Lincoln Steffens, etc. it is patently obvious that they all exaggerated the crimes of capitalism and minimized the atrocities of communism and third world nationalism. I suppose Buckley and Muggeridge got a few things wrong too, but nothing compared to the howlers those Pulitzer prize winners made.....You could read and study the complete works of Marx, Trotsky, and Lenin. You wouldn't then be well informed about Communism. You would be misinformed in the same way that Stewart's immerision in liberalism makes him an inept student of its contradictions.

Alinsky was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1909 to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, the only surviving son of Benjamin Alinsky's marriage to his second wife, Sarah Tannenbaum Alinsky.[3] Alinsky stated during an interview that his parents never became involved in the "new socialist movement." He added that they were "strict orthodox, their whole life revolved around work and synagogue ... I remember as a kid being told how important it was to study."[1]

Because of his strict Jewish upbringing, he was asked whether he ever encountered antisemitism while growing up in Chicago. He replied, "it was so pervasive you didn't really even think about it; you just accepted it as a fact of life." He considered himself to be a devout Jew until the age of 12, after which time he began to fear that his parents would force him to become a rabbi. "I went through some pretty rapid withdrawal symptoms and kicked the habit ... But I'll tell you one thing about religious identity," he added. "Whenever anyone asks me my religion, I always say—and always will say— Jewish."[1]

I'd hate to go into battle with you guys because you'd be shooting everywhere but at the enemy. And that's precisely why this country is limping, fraud is so rampant, and the discussion of issues is so asinine:

Nobody can recognize what's important.

Crack - I suspect it's less to do with people not understand what the real issue is rather then fatigue. We're all beat down and humor is the only thing we've got left. But keep fighting the rearguard action.

Stewart tries to disclaim what he does as comedy, when he uses it as nothing more than a shield for his bitter, putrid ideology. When he denies that the NYT is reporting from a leftard bent, all he proves is how miasmic the entire leftard body politic is in recognizing itself to it's own kind. They will lie, cheat, and steal to your face and tell you that black is white and white is black and that if you question them, you are nothing more than an uninformed bigot, racist, homophobe. But well, if it's done comedically, then they are immune from criticism or want to be.

Stewart walks into Fox, calls them the enemy with impugnity, claims they are nothing more than a talking point disseminator and has no idea that when Wallace is telling or asking him, "Hey, where are the talking points coming from while you are here?" he just doesn't get it. And he has the nerve to call Fox viewers uninformed? Really?

I'm not a fox news supporter. They don't need my help. I read mostly leftard rags to try and understand what the enemy is saying and doing instead.

"Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to have misperceptions, while those who primarily listen to NPR or watch PBS are significantly less likely."

Allow me to translate:

Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly less likely to blindly regurgitate the sort of Leftist propaganda which is routinely spewed by NPR and PBS. They are more likely to examine the primary sources and reach their own independent conclusions (which, according to Leftist propagandists, amounts to "misperceptions").

The "crap study" being referenced was conducted Nov 2010 and released in Dec '10: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/dec10/Misinformation_Dec10_rpt.pdf

I was a respondent to that survey conducted by Knowledge Networks. I find their questions often confusing and misleading requiring far more time to answer than is estimated by the survey writers.

The study itself isn't crap, just the emphasis being placed on FOX viewers. In fact, the study shows that people watching any news outlet (FOX, CNN, MSNBC, etc.) "2-3 Times Weekly" were very similar in accuracy. Only the "Daily Viewers" of Fox and MSNBC had serious deviations from the median answers and from the the cross tab data, we can see this represents a small number of people in the "Daily Viewers" categories.

Here's an example of one of the misleading questions that, if not read and understood correctly as the writers interpreted the question, will elicit a 'wrong' response: "1. Most economists who have studied it estimate that the stimulus legislation saved or created a few jobs or caused job losses."

The results were that the "2-3 Times Weekly" viewers getting the answer wrong for Fox (88%), CNN (85%), and MSNBC (87%) are not statistically far apart and are well within the margin of error, +/- 3.9%.

The "Daily" viewers are substantially different, but only between Fox (91%) and MSNBC (64%), but the daily audience of Public Broadcasting (87% incorrect) is as misinformed as Fox viewers.

Answering the above question, most FOX viewers would probably answer that the stimulus has caused job loss. But, that wasn't the question. The question was about what most economists believe and most economists believe the stimulus created jobs. But that's misleading also because (1) most economists interviewed by news outlets other than FOX tend to be Keysians arguing the government hasn't thrown enough money at the problem and (2) the survey question doesn't identify what group of economists being referenced, whereas the resultant data defines them with this paragraph to which the respondent is not privy - "On a regular basis government economists come to conclusions about the state of the economy. Such conclusions influence key decisions in the private sphere, as well as government decisions. Such government economists should be, and generally are, open to input from experts outside of government in the course of coming to conclusions." So, the question is specifically about government economists, not the independent, non-government, contrarian economists most likely to be interviewed by FOX News.

Overall, the study showed that not one news viewership group was right more than 50% of the time, but a headline 'PBS Viewers Most Misinformed' doesn't play well with the Liberal narrative.

Okay. Chris Matthews is a "legacy" hire. The same way Dubya got to be president. His dad had connections.

Jon Stewart is a comedian. Here? Well, he wasn't the star of the show. Let me put it that way.

As to learning about bias, I'm so glad I watched the RIGHT ONLINE speech Andrew Breitbart gave. Because he really did spell it out!

Liberalism is something people swallow because it is easy. And, they get applauded. When they're not doing anything at all. No heavy lifting is involved.

As to having politics where you can choose? That's American. I don't want to destroy one party. Or the other. Breitbart got that one right on.

It's the RIGGING!

Yeah. I can remember Mort Sahl. He'd come on stage with a newspaper under his arm. And, you laughed. Because his material was the headlines. (Circa the 1960's.) He was a big guest on the Ed Sullivan Show.

And, I remember that Mort Sahl, once the Warren Commission "report" came on on Kennedy's assassination, just basically opening the book to a random page. And, reading the nonsense out loud.

Perhaps, Jon Stewart is doing this, too?

But, unlike Johnny Carson ... where I have no idea how he was voting ... I was surprised that Jon Stewart voted for the elder Bush, in 1988. And, not Dukakis.

Sometimes? People just want to vote for the winnah. And, Dukakis was going down "with the ship." Because he stuck his head of of a tank, wearing a leather helmet and goggles. And, he sure looked stupid.

On the other hand? Back then, the elder Bush was pictured on the TIME cover, with the word WIMP under his feet.

Those are the types of choices Americans are given by both political parties. Which enables comedians to have enough material for jokes.

Ya know, Will Rogers became famous when HOOVER was running for re-election. Hoover actually had Will Rogers' vote.

So maybe it doesn't matter how "stars" vote, after all?

We all get one vote. It's worth exercising.

Alas, I thought Chris Matthews show was a bore.

Andrew Breitbart's RIGHT ONLINE performance is worth seeing!

OFF TOPIC: When my aunt & uncle went to see THE MUSIC MAN, they said "there was no music in that show worth singing. So they sang all the tunes from MY FAIR LADY, as they walked home."

The best comedians are not one night stands!

The good news is that Jon Stewart can make people laugh, without having people changing their political minds, about their own favorites.

-Stewart missed it on the Sawyer bit. There would be a liberal and a conservative lazy way of headlining the Arizona immigration law. Sawyer's liberal worldview lead her to the liberal slant.-Stewart revealed much when he declared Wallace was there just to legitimize Beck. Hannity etc.-When he suggested Hollywood may be liberal but they're most interested in sales, he ignores multiple examples of writing that won't increase viewership. This speech by Joan Allen towards the end of the "The Contender" is a classic example The entire move "V is for Vendetta" is another.-The way the interview started with Stewart being lighthearted, reminded me of the beginning of his now famous appearence on "Crossfire". And as with his speech at "Restore Sanity" he loses sight of when he becomes a strictly political voice and becomes whiny, condescending and obviously of liberal bent.

"Oh yes, very edgy, quite the anti-establishment types. Have you seen who has been on the show? Every government hack has sat down with these 'radicals'."

I didn't say they were "edgy" or (particularly) "anti-establishment", and I complained at Stewart's obsequiousness to powerful establishment figures. However, as comedians they can make fun of the prevailing media and political establishments. As liberals, they make fun with a point of view, (but they also make fun of those titularly "on the left").

As essentially toothless as they are, they provide refreshing mockery of prevailing establishment cant.

No. They're all essentially pro-establishment, (and how could they be otherwise, owned, as they are, by multi-national corporate entities), and do not question the legitimacy of those in power or of their policies. This is the role journalism should be filling.

Bill Moyers' Journal was an invaluable exception, a lone bright spot in the wasteland of mainstream news media.

Fox viewers are secretly meeting behind bowling alleys on the night of the full moon in small towns across America for the express purpose of bringing back Jim Crow.

We get our marching orders from Bill O'Reilly. Watch really carefully. At the 8:05:32 mark (exactly), a coded message is transmitted. See if you can catch it. It takes a little training to correctly receive the orders.

"The Daily Show" "is geared toward people who can think more critically," says Eisenberger, 21, a communications major from Freeland, Pa. "If you watch Fox News at 10, you can find out what can kill you in your kitchen." Regardless of "Daily Show's" yuks, it "provides more news than most undergrads get, anyway," notes St. Joseph's University graduating senior Lauren Taniguchi, 22, of Bridgeton, N.J.

Perhaps this study is worth a link here. FoxNews coverage of the 2008 campaign was more balanced than the others:http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/mary-kate-cary/2009/10/14/fox-news-less-biased-than-cnn-msnbc-in-white-house-coverage-

As I believe someone noted early in this discussion, we should distinguish between the News shows on Fox and the opinion shows. Otherwise the comparision should be with the Times' editorial/ op-ed section, etc.

Indigo Red, Thanks for the link. The idea that a survey (oops, I mean "study") like that could serve as a valid indicator of how informed people are is simply hilarious.

Here's one example. Survey question starts with this: As you know, the American economy had a major downturn starting in the fall of 2008.

Just one little thing--the recession began in December 2007. Giving people an incorrect "anchor" in any survey is a well-known source of bias in their answers.

Here's another good one:

What effect do you think the health reform law will have on the federal budget deficit over the next ten years?

The correct answer to this question is, of course, that Obamacare will lead to massively greater deficits. But that's the "wrong" answer according to this "study," which simply accepts the CBO report that was compelled to evaluate Obamacare according to the idiotic assumptions built into it. To be truly informed in this case meant to know something that the NYT et al. were not reporting. Same thing was true of the CBO "analysis" of Porkulus, which simply assumed a value for the size of the "multiplier effect" rather than estimating anything at all. But the authors of this study, not having the ability to actually understand the CBO's methodology, credulously believe that the correct answer is that Porkulus worked wonders for the economy.

Yeah, I've got a lot of confidence in this survey as an indicator of ignorance, all right--the ignorance of the dolts who created it.

I wondered if maybe he was just giving him enough rope to hang himself.

Exactly. He completely reversed himself at the end and said the media was biased, because they were all liberals, and then he said the bit about being uncomfortable with the acusations of bias against republicans which he was also guilty of. I agree with Crack that that was the most interesting part of the video.

Yes, fine, Stewart did, eventually, at the end of the interview, after some real howlers, gently tuck his viewers under the bus. With the caveat that they only turn to him because, poor lambs, the news media has let them down. Boo fucking hoo. Liberal hack throws supporters under bus (albeit With Great Sadness and Heavy Heart TM). This happens all the time and it's not news. Liberals often expect to be thrown under the bus when they are no longer useful. Some of them will dive under the bus of their own accord just to save their pretend media boyfriend. Whatever.

The important takeaway from this interview, at least for me, was watching Wallace take that clown nose off and stomp on it. With a gentle smile. Liberals love their cool media boyfriend(s) and Stewart was not at all cool in this interview. Denied the ability to retreat into comedy and not intellectually or intestinally prepared to argue a point, any point, Stewart was forced to say some very silly things (e.g., being a comedian is sooo difficult). The very thin veneer of civility started to slip. The man snarled, refused to meet Wallace's eye, then all but slid off his chair after the interview. The dopes in the MSM are billing this as Stewart schooling Wallace but anyone who watches is free to reach the logical conclusion that it was the other way round.

As I read the comments about who is liberal or who is informed based on what they watch and read, I wonder if Shouting and others can tell me which news organizations, or commentators take the time to report in depth on substantial stories. For example Bill Moyers's feature on the Iowa Citizens for Cummunity Improvement which would never see the light of day outside Iowa, or the NYT piece on lung problems for returned troops. The real truth is that the media is so bad Stewart is just shooting fish of all stripes in a barrel.

r-v, FWIW, I'd say that you're asking for something that no news organization can deliver. The very act of deeming a story newsworthy entails an unavoidable value judgment. The interviews with experts pro and con on any issue simply have to be edited, and we have learned from the great filmmakers how important that step is.

Imagine a documentary about sweatshops in the third world. The reality of working conditions and wages will shock most American viewers. The story will convey the desire for some sort of intervention, even if left unspoken.

Now imagine a documentary shot in the same countries as before, but which focuses on the lives people left behind in order to take jobs in sweatshops. That story will leave the viewer with a different impression of the effect of multinational corporations in poor countries.

Maybe the best we can do is to accept that the first documentary will air on PBS and the second on Fox (if we're lucky). People who've already made up their minds will deride the other side's documentary as "biased." I'd ask, So what?

I think the expectation or the desire to get a complete telling of truth from one news outlet is probably not realistic, or even advisable.

Chip if I remember correctly, POV did exactly that: show the challenge of sweat shops which at least offer those who would have no opportunity without that employment what they have to endure on a job they want-- it was aired on PBS. As I have said at other times, the only way to stay informed is to read news sources from different countries along with the NYT and the local rags, and to avoid TV except for when you want some exciting footage of Lindsay Lohan leaving the court room-- something Fox and CBS cover with the same thrilling authority.

As for which viewership is less informed: we'd have to see what was in those polls and surveys. What its authors consider important isn't necessarily what everyone considers important. For example, the name and nationality of the person currently serving as General Secretary of the UN may not be as important to someone as which nearby store sells the least expensive toilet paper. One wonders what such a survey may have revealed in such cases.

Moreover - it's been implied here, and possibly flat out said and I missed it, but just in case it wasn't: a survey reporting one viewership less informed than another isn't convincing if that survey is perceived as itself being informed by one side of the media. Now that doesn't necessarily mean the survey is subjective or wrong. But it doesn't mean it's necessarily right, either, and in fact it risks being wrong in an insidiously evil way. It's like being told your religion is evil because another religion's leader said so. If his religion is tiny, you don't care. But if he's mainstream...

When it comes to media bias, the best conclusion I can come to is that all media is biased; it's just not all biased the same way. Bias is inherent in the medium and inescapable. Limitation in format - any format - requires that the news editor pick and choose what to report. If the editor's outlet is popular, then the editor is defining de facto what is and isn't news. The only way around that is to flood the system - make it all as available as we can and pray we haven't left anything out.

That's the pernicious thing Stewart conceded in one specific case, but neither dwelled on in general: bias isn't just in what you report, but also in what you leave out (or bury on page 18 or in the last ten minutes of the 11pm show, etc.). What does FoxNews fail to report? What about the mainstream? And how much of what is left out, made it into those "who is least informed" surveys? Were poll takers allowed to mention any information they felt was missing from the polls?

So what's the most objective news source? Precious little is really objective. You can't even trust your own personal experience; otherwise there'd be no truth to the adage, "the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'". You can only trust your personal experience to the extent you apply it to your personal space; you can't necessarily apply it in general. Supposedly (inter-)national news has a better grasp, but it'll never see all the little details - the best it'll do is pick and choose human stories NPR- or 20/20-style, and we all know they'll never pick a story from every possible side.

The closest thing I've been able to see as a national level objective news source is C-SPAN.

“These findings do not show that The Daily Show is itself responsible for the higher knowledge among its viewers,” said Young. “The Daily Show assumes a fairly high level of political knowledge on the part of its audience – more so than Leno or Letterman. At the same time, because The Daily Show does deal with campaign events and issues, viewers might certainly pick up information while watching. It is probably a bit of both.”

The Daily Show is comedy news for young people. And, of course, it's a self-selected group. It gets 2 millions viewers per night. They are already a self-selected group - the rest are playing video games, texting or watching 16 and Pregnant. You act as if The Daily Show is THE CAUSE for this difference when in fact it is an EFFECT of audience self-selection.

I don't think Stewart is an arrogant twit - at least, not full time. I'm pretty sure there's a genuine, decent, smart guy hidden within the media persona.

I also think he's mistaken about where all the media bias lies, but... there's no way to prove that to someone who only accepts their side of the media. The same could be said of the right; if a right wing fellow were convinced all the news other than Fox was biased, how could you hope to persuade otherwise? Where is the anchor of premises that both sides would accept? How do you find objectivity?

" I got half way through the interview and my ticked off meter hit the load limit. Stewart is semi serious, but a full time arrogant twit. "

'course, there is that gruff persona tied to the voice he uses ... like he used it when bowling over and through Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala on that 2006 video above (Rush: [As in war] "It is the aggresser that sets the rules") ... a voice reminiscent, to my mind of many a late night with a couple of 'packs a day' habit ... and perhaps occasional heavy cocaine use ... maybe even Alex Jones-style steroid-induced self-administered 'bulking up' medication ...

Stewart definitely wants to have it both ways. He claims the "I'm a comedian" stuff, but goes onto Fox to express his opinions and to claim to present "facts" about Fox and its viewers. He could have easily declined to go on to the show, saying, "Look, I'm just a comedian" or he could come clean and say that he is trying to actually do reporting and political analysis using humor. He does not want to be held to account when he f#cks up his facts or his analysis. FNS doesn't invite Don Rickles on to give his political analysis.

What was the Seinfeld premise again? Oh yeah ... 'a show about nothing' - sums up the Pmail non-event and the 'the media' pretty well; Stewart (and his writers, video editors et al) summed it up most pointedly.

That's another thing that bothers me about mainstream media, that many of my liberal friends seem not to see. They're not as brazenly activist as FoxNews (as I think Stewart rightly claims, to the extent that he's talking about Fox pundits). But they don't have to be. Any one of them needs to editorialize only an inch to FoxNews' foot, and as a result any one of them appear moderate by comparison. Meanwhile, they all reinforce each other's inches, making each other seem all the more well-sourced, while Fox looks like the shrill outlier.

I'm fully aware this is a wild-eyed argument to make. I don't expect anyone on the left to be convinced. I've long considered sitting one of my liberal friends in front of a radio, say, and taking each NPR piece one by one, describing the slant I hear. I wouldn't expect them to sit through that; they've no rational reason to. I also can't excuse Fox editorializing, and I can't ignore the mainstream that I actually trust (and in fact, we all trust some of it).

If they have information that makes the left look bad, they do not report it unless it's making too much noise on Fox and in the right blogsphere. How many times did the NYT come out reporting 3 days after the fact regarding stories that negatively effect the left.

@Bruce: FWIW, I heard the Operation Gunwalker story on WTOP twice this morning, including the "who in the Administration knew about this" angle.

It's a somewhat tricky issue for Republicans to press on. Many people don't mind people having guns in principle. They do mind criminals being given guns in principle. They blame the person, not the tool. So anyone campaigning on this issue has to be careful how that message gets out. Furthermore, there's the old problem of "it's not the crime; it's the coverup". That message is also often easy to lose control of.

It's been a very long time, so I do not remember the instigation for the many times I (figuratively) threw something at the set while watching him on PBS. I do remember that it was often over his condescension toward religions he didn't like (for the record, I am an atheist) and, of course, conservative viewpoints. I do remember this episode well enough to be able to find it without too much effort. To his credit, he apologized (which is why it was easy to locate). But I remember the begruding, backhanded way he did it. He had no choice; Watt cared enough at being slurred that he publicly produced the Congressional record of his testimony and Moyers had no choice but to admit he was not truthful.

It would be much more laborious to document his dishonest portrayal of his opponents ideas (and I have no intention of spending my time doing so). But that was Moyers' stock and trade and I finally had had enough of supporting the organization which gave him his platform.

Stewart is right and wrong. He is idealogical. However, he is out for himself first. This is true of Hollywood and of the press in general. This IS a mistake both sides make. In the end, the press will take it's own side, regardless of idealology.

"Journalists" are worse. Agenda driven people who earn their living making shit up. At least lawyers' ostensible agenda is the client for whom they are working. Journalists just make shit up for an abstract political agenda. Also, they have better publicity and they stick together more. Journolists. Court stenographers.

"Journalists" are worse. Agenda driven people who earn their living making shit up. At least lawyers' ostensible agenda is the client for whom they are working. Journalists just make shit up for an abstract political agenda. Also, they have better publicity and they stick together more.

Can you cite specific examples? I'm not exactly a fan of mainstream journalism (as you might guess from my comments here), but it's very hard for me to make a case that they're outright telling falsehoods. (When they do, it tends to make big news and even they tend to distance themselves from it. They don't like it, and they don't like to be seen as liking it.)

For real? The number of examples of journalists telling lies is a bit overwhelming and it's hard to know where to start. I refer you generally to Palin coverage and the non-stop reporting of rumors as truth, followed, only very occasionally, by dilatory and grudging corrections with the caveat that it doesn't really matter since she's sooo stupid. Also, the Bush years. The canard that Bush lied about WMDs. The Rathergate affair. Etc., etc. The Tea Party false reportage generally, and specifically the reporting that Tea Partiers made racist insults to and (purposeful) spit on African-American Congressmen. The general omission and/or belittlement of conservative perspectives on the part of the MSM generally is, in itself, a lie. At least half the country holds conservative views and it's like they don't exist except as an object of contempt.

In the fall of 2002, in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Karl Rove gave a speech at the University of Utah (his alma mater). I watched a recorded version of that speech on C-Span. He took questions at the end. A women stepped up to the microphone and complained (politely) that the Bush Administration was not listening to the will of the people. For example, she said, there had been 300,000 people at an anti-war protest on the Capital mall a short time before, but it had no impact on the Administration. Rove’s gave a long, considered response, and finished it up with the statement, “Frankly, I’m more concerned with the 3,000 who died on 9/11 than with 300,000 people on the mall.” The New York Times reported on this event, on the front page. They quoted Rove as having said “Frankly, I’m more concerned with the 3,000 who died on 9/11 than with the 300,000 Iraqis who would die in an invasion” (there were estimates floating around at that time that large numbers of Iraqis would die in an invasion). The NYT printed a correction, buried of course on page A19, a few days later.

I watched the entire Rove speech and all of the questions afterwords. No one asked any other question regarding Iraqis dying in an invasion. In other words, it is not possible that the reporter confused two different answers. That report, in the NYT, was a bald faced, reprehensible lie.

Does the mainstream media lie, to the benefit of their liberal soul mates? You’re damn right they do.

Amartel, Mike: thanks. Apologies a bit, too, as I was generally aware of most of these. I didn't know about the Rove incident. I'm not going to bother looking into it, but I will if I ever have to make this case again to my liberal friends - and I just might have to.

Palin coverage will be a difficult matter. If I call people on that, they tend not to cite nuttier things like whether Trig was really Sarah's baby, but instead Katie Couric asking her about the things she's read, and the rather odd religious ceremony in which she gets "protection from witches" - which actually exist on YouTube.

There's enough real smoke there to make me concerned about her ability to appear presidential. At the same time, I remember feeling pretty disappointed in the way she was treated overall. They won; they painted a narrative about her before she could paint one herself. And even then, I wonder if the media can even help it.

Paul: I saw the Rove speech on C-Span (that’s, presumably, irretrievable), and then I read the NYT account online (I was dumbfounded; it was the seminal moment that taught me “they lie!”). The NYT story was in the later half of November, 2002. I think the C-Span broadcast was a week or more after Rove actually spoke. It’s been many years so I don’t have an easy link to provide. I do know that Andrew Sullivan reported on it at the time (this was back before he went insane).

The thing about this incident that really stuck with me was, as Trooper mentioned upthread. I had personal firsthand knowledge of the event. I watched it. Then I saw the report in the NYT. They changed Rove’s quote to turn him into a venomous bastard. But they fabricated it out of whole cloth. By the time we got to RatherGate, I was beyond surprised.